Brainstorming the advantages to an online degree provides no degree of difficulty. The evidence to suggest that distance learning has now reached an enviable higher education threshold has come to pass. Maybe it’s the collection of institutions now offering their online wares—institutions the likes of Yale and Harvard, University of North Carolina and Boston University. Let’s not leave out online pioneer University of Phoenix. This institution may have instilled as much doubt as it did promise in its zealous pursuit of legitimate and online, university-caliber degrees.
Quality and accredited online degree programs make distribution of higher educational opportunities a mainstream reality. These online products, then, may be more carefully defined as valuable commodities marketed to learners without accessibility to college campuses or with stacked work and family schedules. They are convenient, however, when matched with the right learner. Not everyone is suited to the academic demands imposed by a virtual environment. Degrees demand time, professionals tired at the end of a day may simply not have the desire, in the end, to spend two hours or more in front of a computer and immersed in online coursework; and this, for a year or two at a time.
Self-pacing is a key reason many working people seek online degrees. Work and family schedules impose long hours, so it makes sense that curriculum with built-in flexibility and loose time constraints is a big benefit. Again, in the hands of a procrastinator, self-pacing may be detrimental. Almost all degree providers are clear about the fact that participants must consistently make visible progress toward their degree goals—no one is allowed to simply languish in degree Neverland.
Customers used to shopping in an online environment may assume that degrees delivered online must also be discounted. Unfortunately the cost for online programs is about even with the cost of on-campus credit hours. The affordability factor, though, matters in terms of cost of attendance. Students on a traditional campus have room, board, and other academic fees that miraculously boost the cost of attendance at a particular school—what many people continue to erroneously refer to as “tuition.” Tuition—the actual cost for the academic portion of a college education—between a traditional campus degree
Doubts about online degree legitimacy continue to roil about, but not as raucously as they once did. Factors that have served to satisfy some naysayers include the sheer number of online students and subsequent tides of degree seekers. The business world has spawned a number of professional populations that are hypercompetitive and hungry for career traction. Business professionals, nurses, educators, and engineers generate a significant portion of online degree fervor. They will work into the wee hours in return for the convenience of Bachelors, Masters, or even PhDs with which to charge their resumes.
Elite universities such as Harvard and Yale—both of which have launched their own online degree programs—help the cause. But it’s not for this altruistic purpose that they set their sights on distance learning; it’s for the competition.
You better believe that higher education is big business, and if it’s moving to online realms, then when everyone arrives it will be a very good place to be.
